David Brooks has a column today offering a counterfactual scenario in which Obama entered office, passed a massive payroll tax cut instead of the stimulus bill, focused his rhetoric on long-term growth rather than short-term recovery, cut spending, and did a super-popular energy bill rather than the mildly unpopular health-care bill. The idea, of course, is that him and the Democrats would be in better political shape than they currently are.

Like any counterfactual, you could poke holes in this. But instead, let's grant it. Obama entered office in January of 2009, had a long conversation with Future Brooks, and adopted this plan. As Brooks doesn't mention cap-and-trade or a price on carbon, I'll assume this is an energy investment bill rather than a carbon-pricing bill. As Brooks doesn't argue that his plan would've reduced the unemployment rate relative to its current level (and as that would be a very difficult case to make), I'll assume the economy looks pretty much as it looks now.

Maybe, in that world, Brooks is right. Maybe Democrats would be facing a loss of 25 or 30 seats rather than 45 or 50. I could think of reasons that that's not true, but let's say, for the moment, that it is.

What Brooks seems to be offering is a trade: Do less stuff, hold more seats. Now, Brooks doesn't think the health-care bill was a good bill, but Obama does, and most Democrats do. I'm not really sure what Brooks thinks of the stimulus plan's long-term infrastructure investments, but Obama and his team thought they were extremely important to the economy's long-term growth prospects. A universal health-care bill and hundreds of billions in much-needed, long-term investments in exchange for 15 or 20 House seats? Well, what are supermajorities for, if not making that precise trade?

You could say, I guess, that Obama and his team could've gotten more done by doing less in years one and two and then holding Democratic seats so they could continue passing legislation in years three and four. But I'd look at that a bit differently: They spent years one and two working on the issue areas of interest to massive Democratic majorities, like health-care reform and infrastructure investment, and they'll spend years three and four working on things that are of more interest to divided government, like deficit reduction. That is to say, they got everything they could out of the Democratic supermajority, and now they'll actually be able to pivot to the center more easily, as Democrats won't be yelling at Obama to fulfill his campaign promises and do health-care reform.

The odd man out in all this is energy reform, but I'm of the perhaps-pessimistic opinion that a serious cap-and-trade bill never really had a chance. Either way, I'm much more inclined toward critiques of Obama that focus on what more he could have done over the past two years. Saying he could have done less and then he would've been criticized less may or may not be true, but I'm much more worried about failing the uninsured and failing the climate than about failing Democratic candidates running in the 2010 midterms.

It's bad form to call the American people "spoiled" because generally that's what pundits do when their side is losing. This column is no exception: Robinson laments the fact that "incredibly, according to Gallup, registered voters say they intend to vote for Republicans over Democrats by an astounding 10-point margin."

The nation demands the impossible: quick, painless solutions to long-term, structural problems. While they're running for office, politicians of both parties encourage this kind of magical thinking. When they get into office, they're forced to try to explain that things aren't quite so simple -- that restructuring our economy, renewing the nation's increasingly rickety infrastructure, reforming an unsustainable system of entitlements, redefining America's position in the world and all the other massive challenges that face the country are going to require years of effort. But the American people don't want to hear any of this. They want somebody to make it all better. Now.

Again, Americans are spoiled brats, but not because they're complaining about the state of the economy, it's because they have an unrealistic expectation of how fast things will turn around, and little desire to suffer any pain in the process.

The 71% saying Bush should get blamed was a modest decline from the 80% who felt that way about a year ago, in July 2009. [...]

In the July 2009 poll, a third, 32%, said [Obama] should shoulder a great deal or moderate amount of the blame. That percentage has risen — no surprise, given that he’s been in office for 20 months. Now almost half, 48%, do. But 51% say he’s dealing with problems he inherited, not created, saying he deserves not much or none of the responsibility for economic problems that include high unemployment and a faltering housing market.

There was, predictably, a yawning partisan divide on the question. Republicans by 4-1, 44%-10%, were more likely to give Obama a great deal of the blame than Bush. Democrats by more than 20-1 targeted Bush: They said the former president bore a great deal of the blame; just 3% said that of the current one.

Thursday, September 2, 2010

In the punditry business, it's considered bad form to question the essential wisdom of the American people. But at this point, it's impossible to ignore the obvious: The American people are acting like a bunch of spoiled brats.

This is not, I repeat not, a partisan argument. My own political leanings are well-known, but the refusal of Americans to look seriously at the nation's situation -- and its prospects -- is an equal-opportunity scourge. Republicans got the back of the electorate's hand in 2006 and 2008; Democrats will feel the sting this November. By 2012, it will probably be the GOP's turn to get slapped around again.

The nation demands the impossible: quick, painless solutions to long-term, structural problems. While they're running for office, politicians of both parties encourage this kind of magical thinking. When they get into office, they're forced to try to explain that things aren't quite so simple -- that restructuring our economy, renewing the nation's increasingly rickety infrastructure, reforming an unsustainable system of entitlements, redefining America's position in the world and all the other massive challenges that face the country are going to require years of effort. But the American people don't want to hear any of this. They want somebody to make it all better. Now.

President Obama can point to any number of occasions on which he has told Americans that getting our nation back on track is a long-range project. But his campaign stump speech ended with the exhortation, "Let's go change the world" -- not, "Let's go change the world slowly and incrementally, waiting years before we see the fruits of our labor."

And one thing he really hasn't done is frame the hard work that lies ahead as a national crusade that will require a degree of sacrifice from every one of us. It's obvious, for example, that the solution to our economic woes is not just to reinflate the housing bubble. New foundations have to be laid for a 21st-century economy, starting with weaning the nation off of its dependence on fossil fuels, which means there will have to be an increase in the price of oil. I don't want to pay more to fill my gas tank, but I know that it would be good for the nation if I did.

The richest Americans need to pay higher taxes -- not because they're bad people who deserve to be punished but because they earn a much bigger share of the nation's income and hold a bigger share of its overall wealth. If they don't pay more, there won't be enough revenue to maintain, much less improve, the kind of infrastructure that fosters economic growth. Think of what the interstate highway system has meant to this country. Now imagine trying to build it today.

Fixing Social Security for future generations, working steadily to improve the schools, charting a reasonable path on immigration -- none of this is what the American people want to hear. They're in the market for quick and easy solutions that won't hurt a bit. It's easy to blame politicians for selling a bunch of snake oil. But the truth is that all they're doing is offering what the public wants to buy.

The Coast Guard initially reported that an oil sheen a mile long and 100 feet wide had begun to spread from the site of the blast, about 200 miles west of the source of BP's massive spill. But hours later, Coast Guard Cmdr. Cheri Ben-Iesau said crews were unable to find any spill.

But one of the awards isn't a put down to the person its named after. It's named after Liberal Blogger Matthew Yglesias, and it's for writers, politicians, columnists or pundits who actually criticize their own side, make enemies among political allies, and generally risk something for the sake of saying what they believe.

I previously expressed hope that Markos Moulitsas’ American Taliban: How War, Sex, Sin, and Power Bind Jihadists and the Radical Right would be better than the publicity material suggested. Jamelle Bouie read it for The American Prospect and reports back that it isn’t. Kevin Drum, meanwhile, notes the contrast between this kind of scathing review on a very mainstream liberal magazine and the reception of Liberal Fascism on the right.

I tend to think that this is one of the areas where progressives aren’t just doing the right thing, but have a smarter tactical approach to politics. There are scenarios in which tagging your political opponents with smears can be effective, but I don’t see any evidence that the particular apocalyptic “my enemies are totalitarian madmen” strain of Birch/Beck/Goldberg conservatism has helped anyone win any elections. This should be differentiated from the occasional lapse into rhetorical excess that everyone does now and again. I’m talking specifically about the kind of sustained effort to seriously persuade people that Elana Kagan favors sharia or Dwight Eisenhower is a Communist that you see among loons of all stripes but that seems to be granted more respectability on the right.

This stuff doesn’t win votes anyone because, after all, it’s a form of preaching to the choir. Which is fine—the choir needs some sermons. But there’s no real upside in lying to the choir. Political movements need to adapt to the actual situation, and that means having an accurate understanding of your foes. You need to see them as they actually are so that you know the right way to respond. Either underestimating or overestimating their level of viciousness and evil can lead to serious miscalculations. Which is just to say that getting this stuff right is more important than coming up with funny put-downs.

I almost want to call this the Fort McHenry Manifesto. Thank you again, sir.

It's interesting. The media hyperventilates over any Gallup polling that finds the Democrats in despair. But when Gallup finds Barack Obama's approval rating jumping a net 12 percentage points in two and a half weeks, with more approving than disapproving for two straight days -- the first time that has been the case since mid-July -- all we hear is... crickets. Interesting.

First, this was not a deep water well. It was drilling in the Gulf in waters reported as being 340-feet deep or 450-feet deep, depending on who's doing the reporting. That's shallow compared to the mile-deep water BP's Deepwater Horizon was drilling in when it went down. So the moratorium doesn't apply.

Second, this was a production platform, not a drilling platform, according to the initial reports. There's been some conflict in the reports about whether it was actively producing at the time of the explosion, but regardless it's not an exploration platform. The moratorium applies to drilling in the deep waters of the Gulf. Production in the deep waters of the Gulf has been ongoing ever since the BP disaster.

An economist and two health policy researchers at the nonprofit Rand Corp. conducted a simulation to predict what is likely to happen once employers are able to offer coverage through these exchanges. Overall, they estimate that the proportion of U.S. workers who will have access to health insurance through their jobs will jump from 84.6% to 94.6%. That works out to 13.6 million additional workers having the option to buy affordable health plans.

Most of that bump is likely to come from smaller businesses with 50 or fewer employees. Today, only 60.4% of these employees can get health insurance through their jobs. Once the exchanges are functioning, the Rand researchers forecast that 85.9% of small business employees will have the option of buying health plans at work--an increase of 10.5 million workers.

Part of the reason for that growth is that the policies that will be offered through the exchanges will be less expensive, the researchers said. Small companies will be able to band together to pool their risk, which will give them more leverage to bargain with insurance companies. It also means their premiums should be more stable from year to year.

I like Joe Klein, but his latest column edges toward the nonsensical. Our Democracy isn't breaking down because of the process or arcane Senate rules. It's breaking down because one group of people (Conservatives), believe that the other group (Liberals/Progressives) have no right to govern once they've been voted into power.

When one side is saying that the other doesn't have a fundamental right to govern, Mr. Klein's idea's become meaningless.

Elizabeth Warren is the frontrunner to lead the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. She's also, however, a professor at Harvard Law School, which isn't very compatible with taking a full-time job in Washington. Something's going to have to give. And if this e-mail Brady Dennis obtained is any indication, it's not Warren's political ambitions:

When fall classes began Wednesday at Harvard Law School, Elizabeth Warren was scheduled to be teaching contract law to first-year students. But something happened on the way to the chalkboard.

"I'm writing to let you know that Professor Jerry Frug will be teaching your Contracts class this term instead of Professor Elizabeth Warren," law school dean Martha Minow wrote to students on Tuesday, according to an e-mail obtained by The Washington Post. "Professor Warren regrets that she will not be able to teach you this fall and we regret the last minute change."

Last-minute change?

I'd also note that as the election outlook grows grimmer for the Democrats, the White House seems to be picking a new fight on jobs. I wouldn't be shocked if they decided to pick one on consumer protections, as well.

Wednesday, September 1, 2010

Although Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty (R) on Tuesday signed an executive order aimed at keeping the Patient Protection and Affordable Health Care Act out of the state, he has also approved a budget that encourages state agencies to apply for grants funded by that very same health care law.

Pawlenty's executive order explicitly states, "All executive branch departments and agencies are directed that no application shall be submitted to the federal government in connection with requests for grant funding for programs and demonstration projects deriving from the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act ("PPACA" or "the Act") (Pub.L. 111-148) unless otherwise required by law, or approved by the office of the Governor."

But in Minnesota's Special Session Budget, signed by Pawlenty on May 21, the state health commissioner is directed to apply for grants from this exact law:

Do as I say, not as I said to get a couple of headlines a couple days ago in the interests of my faltering Presidential ambitions.

And yes, I know I just ripped Huffington Post and quoted something from Huffington Post in the space of two postings. I am just Mr. Consistency!

Democrats in Congress are poised to play a leading role this month in thwarting their party's effort to raise income tax rates on the wealthy.

Tax cuts enacted in 2001 and 2003 expire at the end of this year. President Barack Obama and Democratic congressional leaders have been eager to extend the breaks for individuals who earn less than $200,000 annually and joint filers who make less than $250,000. Those who earn more would pay higher, pre-2001 rates starting next year.

However, a small but growing number of moderate Democrats are balking at boosting taxes on the rich. Many face electorates that recoil at the mention of any tax increase. Some represent areas that are loaded with wealthier taxpayers. Further, some incumbent senators who don't face voters this fall are reluctant to increase taxes on anyone while the economy remains sluggish.

Without their support, the push to raise rates on the rich probably will fail.

I respect McClatchy...and despite the fact I'm a Liberal, I can't stand Huffington Post...but there is a huge problem with the story, as far as I see it.

One, the Bush Tax Rates are set to expire at the end of the year.No further legislation is needed to raise the rates back to Bill Clinton-era levels. In fact, no further action is needed to raise the rates back to Bill Clinton-era levels.

Fine, was a movement afoot by...well, fiscally responsible Democrats to enact legislation to raise taxes on the rich, and a few Democrats have been stoopid enough to champion the idea of keeping our Nation's wealthiest citizens taxes low, low, low.

And Evan Bayh just proved to me what a crappy Vice-President he would have been. Don't let the door hit you on the way out, you rich bastard!

It is quite possible that Washington stalemate will produce the result fiscally responsible Liberals want, no bill to extend the Bush Tax Cuts. (Do you really think there's 60 votes for this crap? I'm betting 53-55 tops.)

Let's say they do get the tax cuts extended. Who exactly is going to sign them?

The way he was talking last night, I don't think it's going to be Barack Obama.

Throughout our history, America has been willing to bear the burden of promoting liberty and human dignity overseas, understanding its links to our own liberty and security. But we have also understood that our nation’s strength and influence abroad must be firmly anchored in our prosperity at home. And the bedrock of that prosperity must be a growing middle class.

Unfortunately, over the last decade, we’ve not done what’s necessary to shore up the foundations of our own prosperity. We spent a trillion dollars at war, often financed by borrowing from overseas. This, in turn, has short-changed investments in our own people, and contributed to record deficits. For too long, we have put off tough decisions on everything from our manufacturing base to our energy policy to education reform. As a result, too many middle-class families find themselves working harder for less, while our nation’s long-term competitiveness is put at risk.

And so at this moment, as we wind down the war in Iraq, we must tackle those challenges at home with as much energy, and grit, and sense of common purpose as our men and women in uniform who have served abroad. They have met every test that they faced. Now, it’s our turn. Now, it’s our responsibility to honor them by coming together, all of us, and working to secure the dream that so many generations have fought for -- the dream that a better life awaits anyone who is willing to work for it and reach for it.

Our most urgent task is to restore our economy, and put the millions of Americans who have lost their jobs back to work. To strengthen our middle class, we must give all our children the education they deserve, and all our workers the skills that they need to compete in a global economy. We must jumpstart industries that create jobs, and end our dependence on foreign oil. We must unleash the innovation that allows new products to roll off our assembly lines, and nurture the ideas that spring from our entrepreneurs. This will be difficult. But in the days to come, it must be our central mission as a people, and my central responsibility as President.

Translation: Okay, y'all have made everything I've done in the last two years about the deficit (even when I've worked to trim the deficit), so put your money where your mouth is. I'm about to give you what you sayyou want, a lower deficit. Now are you willing to stop whoring for your Corporate Masters to get this done, or is what you're selling nothing but a mountain of bullshit?

Like many changes that are revolutionary, none of Washington’s problems happened overnight. But slow and steady change over many decades—at a rate barely noticeable while it’s happening—produces change that is transformative. In this instance, it’s the kind of evolution that happens inevitably to rich and powerful states, from imperial Rome to Victorian England. The neural network of money, politics, bureaucracy, and values becomes so tautly interconnected that no individual part can be touched or fixed without affecting the whole organism, which reacts defensively.

And thus a new president, who was elected with 53 percent of the popular vote, and who began office with 80 percent public-approval ratings and large majorities in both houses of Congress, found himself for much of his first year in office in stalemate, pronounced an incipient failure, until the narrowest possible passage of a health-care bill made him a sudden success in the fickle view of the commentariat, whose opinion curdled again when Obama was unable, with a snap of the fingers or an outburst of anger, to stanch the BP oil spill overnight. And whose opinion spun around once more when he strong-armed BP into putting $20 billion aside to settle claims, and asserted presidential authority by replacing General Stanley McChrystal with General David Petraeus. The commentariat’s opinion will keep spinning with the wind.

The evidence that Washington cannot function—that it’s “broken,” as Vice President Joe Biden has said—is all around. For two years after Wall Street brought the country close to economic collapse, regulatory reform languished in partisan gridlock. A bipartisan commission to take on the federal deficit was scuttled by Republican fears in Congress that it could lead to higher taxes, and by Democratic worries about cuts to social programs. Obama was forced to create a mere advisory panel instead.

Four years after Congress nearly passed a comprehensive overhaul of immigration laws, the two parties in Washington are farther apart than ever, and hotheaded state legislatures have stepped into the breach. Guantánamo remains an open sore because of fearmongering about the transfer of prisoners to federal prisons on the mainland. What Americans perceive in Washington, as Obama put it in his State of the Union speech, in January, is a “perpetual campaign where the only goal is to see who can get the most embarrassing headlines about the other side—a belief that if you lose, I win.” His chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, whose Friday-afternoon mantra has become “Only two more workdays till Monday!,” sums up today’s Washington in terms both coarser and more succinct. To him, Washington is just “Fucknutsville.”

Most liberals economists now believe the economic stimulus was too small. I'm inclined to believe them. But exactly how much difference would a larger stimulus have made? Pretend Obama had gotten a stimulus that was twice as large, somewhere in the neighborhood of $1.5 trillion. What would the economy look like today?

I put that question to Dean Baker, of the Center for Economic and Policy Research. Here's what he said:

As a first approximation, try multiplying everything by 2. The Congressional Budge Office estimates that the stimulus added 1.7-4.5 percent to GDP and that it lowered the unemployment rate by 0.7-1.8 percentage points. If it were twice as large assume GDP growth in the 3.4 -9.0 percent range and the drop in unemployment in the range of 1.4 -3.6 pp. In other words, the unemployment rate today would be between 7.7 percent and 8.8 percent.

There is also a greater likelihood that this would have kicked off self-sustaining growth with a bigger round of investment coming on board and maybe even some real wage growth.

In other words, unemployment would have been more than a full percentage point lower than it is today. And it would be heading down faster.

That's a pretty big difference.

That said, devising such a large stimulus may not have been easy. At the time, White House officials said they were having trouble finding more shovel-ready infrastructure projects and, more generally, coming up ways of ways to inject more money into the economy.

Larry Mishel, who is from the Economic Policy Institute, thinks you have to acknowledge those limits. But he also thinks it was possible to do a lot more and, to his credit, was saying so at the time. Here's what he just told me:

Well, the stimulus would have created twice as many jobs, perhaps as many as five million more full-time equivalent jobs. I must admit, however, that though the economy needed that size stimulus, I’m not sure there were good vehicles for executing such a stimulus. I’m not sure I would have wanted to double the tax cuts, and it wasn’t possible to double much of the investments and get them underway in this time period. We could have given states more relief. And, we could have extended the time period of much of the stimulus elements--unemployment insurance, investments, state relief, etc.--so we wouldn’t need to renew tham now.

Five million more jobs--again, if that's correct, it's a big difference.

Of course, such a large stimulus may not have been possible politically. But that's another story.

The Conservative position is simple. The Individual Mandate makes people buy Health Insurance, and people shouldn’t have to be forced to buy Health Insurance if they don’t want to.

Here’s the problem with that notion. One of the most popular aspects of Health Care Reform is the provision that forbids Insurance Companies denying you coverage based on Pre-Existing Conditions. This provision is so popular that even Conservobots who voted against the bill say that this is the one thing they agreed with. If the Democrats had just gotten rid of the Individual Mandate, we could have voted for Health Care Reform.

Of course, that’s bull@#$%. One of the hard lessons people learned in the last few years is you cannot have one without the other.

So what’s the answer? Americans overwhelmingly favor guaranteeing coverage to those with pre-existing conditions — but you can’t do that without pursuing broad-based reform. To make insurance affordable, you have to keep currently healthy people in the risk pool, which means requiring that everyone or almost everyone buy coverage. You can’t do that without financial aid to lower-income Americans so that they can pay the premiums. So you end up with a tripartite policy: elimination of medical discrimination, mandated coverage, and premium subsidies.

Or to put it another way, you end up with something like the health care plan Mitt Romney introduced in Massachusetts in 2006, and the very similar plan the House either will or won’t pass in the next few days. Comprehensive reform is the only way forward.

Of course, as you remember, the reform was passed, and Republicans are campaigning to repeal it.

It’s very simple. Health Care is a complicated machine. Piecemeal reform isn't going to cut it (as Dr. Krugman said). If you wanna do X, then you have to do Y. If you don’t, costs spiral out of control and soon nobody will have Health Insurance (see, Insurance Death Spiral).

As implementation of the Affordable Care Act proceeds, the law extends subsidies to states to help early retirees -- folks who leave the workforce before they're eligible for Medicare, but who still want to maintain their coverage. States led by Republicans may claim to hate the new law, but they're nevertheless seeking the funds -- even many of the states trying to kill the ACA in court.

In Minnesota, Gov. Tim Pawlenty (R) is taking a different route. The increasingly right-wing governor, desperate to pander to the party's base in advance of his presidential campaign, issued an order to state officials yesterday, demanding that they not seek grants through the new law, even if the funding would help the people of his state.

Keep in mind, this isn't some kind of opt-out scheme -- the law still applies to Minnesota, just like every other state. This is a scheme whereby funds are made available to states, and Pawlenty is demanding that Minnesota not seek those resources, at least for now.

Let’s call it what it is. Tim Pawlenty is screwing over the uninsured in his state to burnish his Conservative Credintials in advance of the 2012 race.

The heads of Minnesota's most influential medical associations -- which nearly always keep political matters at arms' length -- issued a sharp rebuke. "The governor's decision just doesn't make sense for Minnesotans," the Minnesota Council of Health Plans, the Minnesota Hospital Association and the Minnesota Medical Association said in a joint statement late Tuesday.

Hal Scherz, a doctor and president of the right-wing lobby "Docs4PatientCare" writes in today's Wall Street Journal that he and members of his group are posting letters in their waiting rooms warning patients of the horrors of the Affordable Care Act and urging repeal.

This is all real simple.

Republicans don’t give a rats ass about deficits or future costs. Period. All they care about is representing the Corporate Master who has given them a lot of campaign cash. They don’t care about the Health of the Health Care System. It’s broken (but starting to mend thanks to HCR), a fifth of our Citizens can’t access it, but screw ‘em.They should have been born to richer, whiter households.We don’t like President Obama anyway, and this seems as good an excuse as any to rail against him, even if it means lying through our teeth to get the job done.

If you fall for this, America, you'll fall for anything.

We’re about to learn a lot about America in the coming months. I maintain my position that the problem with the country isn’t its Polticans, but its people.

President Obama’s Oval Office speech was good, but the iconography was great.

In his address marking the effective end of the Iraq War, Obama used the setting well. The flags behind him, the family pictures on either side, the flag pin in his lapel, the red tie, white shirt and blue suit... it all projected patriotism and authority.

One thing that worked in the speech was his drawing a straight line between the vast monetary cost of the war and the economic slough of despond in which we're mired. One thing that didn't work was his assertion that with the end of combat in Iraq, we were turning a page. We're still at war, and Obama said that now more resources are available for Afghanistan.

Politicos will be universally dissatisfied. Liberals will say he gave George W. Bush too much credit; conservatives, not enough. But I think he did himself and his party some good tonight. He was generous enough to Bush, resolute in his intentions and obviously sincere in his praise of the troops. He wore the presidency with an accessory that Americans expect and appreciate: gravitas.

Conversely, while conservatives are busy angrily denouncing the president for not giving more credit to Bush for implementing the surge -- by which they mean not acknowledging that conservatives were right -- that wouldn't have been appropriate either. This speech was about the commitment of those who actually served, not the better part of valor displayed by those who sat in front of their keyboards and hammered out empirical or ideological arguments for or against the war.

That's not to say that the speech was devoid of politics. Obama's style of politics is to pretend he's above politics, and this speech fits that mold. But the biggest reason not to rehash the argument over going to war in Iraq is that he won it already. It's part of why he's president. Obama doesn't need to convince the American people that the war in Iraq was a mistake, because a majority of Americans already believe that. Conservatives want to reargue the war from 2007 onward, but treating the Iraq war as though it began with the surge is a bit like running over someone on the street, backing up over the body a few times, and then demanding a special merit badge for finally deciding to call 911. And as I wrote yesterday, this still isn't really over.

The most disappointing part of the speech was that the president failed to acknowledge the suffering of the Iraqi people as a result of the war. Doing so would not have diminished his tribute towards American servicemembers, but it would have been a helpful reminder that treating the rest of the world like a game of RISK has real human consequences. Unlike the president's refusal to reargue the war, his failure to acknowledge the suffering of Iraqi civilians -- more than an estimated 100,000 of whom died as a result -- is an inexcusable omission.

Throughout our history, America has been willing to bear the burden of promoting liberty and human dignity overseas, understanding its links to our own liberty and security. But we have also understood that our nation’s strength and influence abroad must be firmly anchored in our prosperity at home. And the bedrock of that prosperity must be a growing middle class.

Unfortunately, over the last decade, we’ve not done what’s necessary to shore up the foundations of our own prosperity. We spent a trillion dollars at war, often financed by borrowing from overseas. This, in turn, has short-changed investments in our own people, and contributed to record deficits. For too long, we have put off tough decisions on everything from our manufacturing base to our energy policy to education reform. As a result, too many middle-class families find themselves working harder for less, while our nation’s long-term competitiveness is put at risk.

And so at this moment, as we wind down the war in Iraq, we must tackle those challenges at home with as much energy, and grit, and sense of common purpose as our men and women in uniform who have served abroad. They have met every test that they faced. Now, it’s our turn. Now, it’s our responsibility to honor them by coming together, all of us, and working to secure the dream that so many generations have fought for -- the dream that a better life awaits anyone who is willing to work for it and reach for it.

Our most urgent task is to restore our economy, and put the millions of Americans who have lost their jobs back to work. To strengthen our middle class, we must give all our children the education they deserve, and all our workers the skills that they need to compete in a global economy. We must jumpstart industries that create jobs, and end our dependence on foreign oil. We must unleash the innovation that allows new products to roll off our assembly lines, and nurture the ideas that spring from our entrepreneurs. This will be difficult. But in the days to come, it must be our central mission as a people, and my central responsibility as President.

So, this afternoon, the president appeared in the Rose Garden to talk up economic policy in general, a chide Republicans for blocking the small-business-incentives bill in specific.

On his first workday back at the White House after a 10-day Martha's Vineyard vacation and a trip to New Orleans on Sunday, Mr. Obama addressed the nation's mounting economic anxieties in brief remarks from the Rose Garden. With the unemployment rate stuck above 9 percent, and the economic recovery all but stalled, he spent part of the morning huddled with his economic advisers.

While he said he and his team are "hard at work in identifying additional measures that could make a difference" -- including extending middle-class tax cuts that are set to expire this year, investing more in clean energy and in infrastructure rebuilding -- the president's most urgent call was directed at members of Congress, who return to work next week.

"This bill has been languishing in the Senate for four months, held up by a partisan minority that won't even allow it to go to a vote. That makes no sense," Mr. Obama said, referring to the small business initiative. He added, "Holding this bill hostage is directly detrimental to our economic growth."

That last point was bolstered by a new USA Today report, which the president made reference to, explaining that about 1,000 small businesses are ready to expand, but are waiting for Senate Republicans to stop playing petty games.

Following up on what we talked about yesterday, though, is there any reason to think the White House may put forward any kind of new economic policies and/or stimulus and/or jobs bill? It's hard to say exactly -- there almost certainly won't be one, ambitious package on the way, but Obama raised the specter of "additional measures."

Specifically, the president said, "[A]s Congress prepares to return to session, my economic team is hard at work in identifying additional measures that could make a difference in both promoting growth and hiring in the short term, and increasing our economy's competitiveness in the long term -- steps like extending the tax cuts for the middle class that are set to expire this year; redoubling our investment in clean energy and R&D; rebuilding more of our infrastructure for the future; further tax cuts to encourage businesses to put their capital to work creating jobs here in the United States. And I'll be addressing these proposals in further detail in the days and weeks to come."

I wouldn't necessarily interpret this as "new economic plan on the way," but it's something to keep an eye on.

What this Blog is About

Fort McHenry defended Baltimore, Maryland (my home state) from the British Navy during the War of 1812. Francis Scott Key wrote "The Star Spangled Banner" while a prisoner on a British ship. The "rockets red glare" and "bombs bursting in air" were bursting over Fort McHenry. I've decided to use this blog as my own "Fort McHenry" for President Obama, using this space to occassionally defend and explain his actions.